955  sX 

UC-NRLF 


B  3  ssQ  ms 


ATHER^ 
DAMIEN 

AN  OPEN 
LETTER  ^ 
™  TO  THE 
EVEREND  DOCTOR  HYDE 
F    HONOLULU    ^     ^    FROM 


OBERT     LOUIS     STEVENSON 


THE  LIBRARY 

OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 


PRESENTED  BY 

PROF.  CHARLES  A.  KOFOID  AND 

MRS.  PRUDENCE  W.  KOFOID 


I 


X 


FATHER     DAMIEN 


AN  OPEN  LETTER 
TO  THE  REVEREND 
DOCTOR  HYDE  OF 
HONOLULU  FROM 
ROBERT  LOUIS 
STEVENSON 


FOUK  HUNDRED  AND  FIFTY 
COPIES  OF  THIS  BOOK  HAVE 
BEEN  PRINTED  ON  VAN  GEL- 
DER  HAND-MADE  PAPER,  AND 
TYPE   DISTRIBUTED. 


FATHER    DAA\IE/NJ 

BY 
ROBERT  LOVIS  STEVENSON 


Portland,  Mtune 

Mdcecxcuiii 


THIRD    KDITION 


FOREWORD  '  ^'^  ? 


iviGG7C29 


No  golden  dome  shines  over  Damien's  sleep : 

A  leper's  grave  upon  a  leprous  strand, 

Where  hope  is  dead,  and  hand  must  shrink  from  hand, 

Where  cataracts  wail  toward  a  moaning  deep. 

And  frowning  purple  cliffs  in  mercy  keep 

All  wholesome  life  at  distance,  hath  God  planned 

For  him  who  led  the  saint's  heroic  band, 

And  died  a  shepherd  of  Christ's  exiled  sheep. 

O'er  Damien"s  dust  the  broad  skies  bend  for  dome 

Stars  bum  for  golden  letters,  and  the  sea 

Shall  roll  perpetual  anthem  round  his  rest : 

For  Damien  made  the  charnel-house  life's  home. 

Matched  love  with  death  ;  and  Damien's  name  shall  be 

A  glorious  benediction,  world-possest. 

H.  D.  RAWNSLEV. 


FOREWORD 


ITH  Mr.R.L. 

Stevensoit's 
cotnplUnaits. 
Father  Da- 
mien.  An 
open  letter  to 
the  Reverend 
Dr.  Hyde  of 
Ho  no  I u  I u 
from  Robert 
Louis  Steven- 
son. Sydney. 
1890. 1  Such 
is  the  title-page  of  a  little  pamphlet  that 
was  privately  printed  by  its  author  for 
presentation  only :  nevertheless  it  has 

I.  It  was  in  i2mo.  (Pp.  32)  and  privately 
printed  for  presentation  only  at  Sydney,  (N.  S. 
W.),  March  27th,  1890.  It  appeared  in  the 
"  Scots  Ohserzier"  May  3d  and  loth,  1890.  The 
second  issue  was  a  thin  4to,  printed  on  Japan 


FOREWORD 

become  part  and  parcel  of  English  lit- 
erature, and  must  be  reckoned  with. 

Outside  of  what  the  Letter  tells  us 
of  Father  Damien  would  you  know 
how  he  fared  in  the  seventeen  years 
given  up  to  wretches  forsaken  of  man, 
—  almost  forgotten  of  God?  Is  it 
not  well  to  see  this  solitary  priest  as 
he  was,  —  the  single  star  of  hope  in  a 
long  night  of  human  misery? 2 

Somehow,  at  the  time,  one  fancies 

paper  (of  which  only  30  copies  were  issued, 
with  a  portrait  of  Father  Damien)  by  Messrs. 
Constable  &  Co.,  Edinburgh.  The  third  issue 
was  a  i2mo,  brown  paper  wrappers,  published 
at  a  shilling  by  Messrs.  Chatto  &  Windus, 
London,  iSgo.  (See  Mr.  E.  D.  North's  "A 
Bibliography  of  Robert  Loiiis  Stevenson^'  in 
The  Bookman,  September,  i8g6.) 

The  disinterestedness  of  ."^tevenson  was  still 
further  shown  by  a  refusal  to  accept  payment 
for  his  Apologia.  It  was  concerning  this  third 
issue  by  the  London  firm  that  he  wrote  them : 
"  The  letter  to  Dr.  Hyde  is  yours,  or  any 
man's.  I  will  never  touch  a  penny  of  remun- 
eration. I  do  not  stick  at  murder;  I  draw  the 
line  at  cannibalism.  I  could  not  eat  a  penny 
roll  that  piece  of  bludgeoning  had  gained  for 
me." 

2.  See  Edward  Clifford's  little  book,  Failier 
Dajnien  :  A  Joiirtiey  from  Cashmere  to  his 
home  in  Hawaii,  (London,  iSSg). 

The  beautiful  portrait  by  Mr.  Clifford  has 
been  successfully  reproduced  as  a  frontispiece 
to  the  present  edition. 


FOREWORD 

a  sort  of  critical  indifference ;  at  best 
as  who  should  say,  why  vex  yourself 
over  a  Dr.  Hyde?  Have  you  not 
given  us  an  imaginary  Mr.  Hyde? 
The  lost  souls  of  the  imagination 
interest  us  vastly  more  than  this 
obscure  traducer  and  a  far  off  leper 
colony.  Besides,  your  Letter  reads 
like  truth  and  who  cares  for,  —  in- 
deed, what  is  Truth  ? 

Perhaps  it  is  one  cause  of  our  love 
for  him  that  Robert  Louis  Stevenson 
did  care  for  Truth.  The  despicable 
charges  against  Damien  touched  his 
soul  to  fine  and  fiery  issues.  Through 
him  the  world  of  living  men  first  be- 
held this  humble  Belgian  priest  min- 
istering to  untold  suffering  in  such 
wise  as  he  might  until  the  night  came 
wherein  no  man  laboured  more. 3 

3.  "There  are  not  too  many  heroisms  in 
the  world;  the  earth,  as  Carl  vie  said,  will  not 
become  too  God-like.  Obscure  bigots  who 
are  never  tired  of  proclaiming  that  they  are 
Christians  will  take  very  good  care  of  that. 
But  to  ignorant  intolerance,  which  presumes 
to  revile  such  a  life  as  Damien's  because  he  is 
not  this  and  he  is  not  that,  may  be  very  decis- 
ively applied  the  crushing  rebuke  which  the 
brother  of  the  dead  Ophelia  addressed  to  the 
' churlish  priest '  in  Hamlet"  ArcJiihald  Bnl- 
latityjie  in  Lo}igma7t\  Magazi7te,  May,  1S89. 


FOREWORD 

In  any  age,  —  out  of  many  lands, 
where  find  a  greater  sacrifice  of  self? 
Creeds  pass;  conduct  alone  endures. 
Stevenson  saw  the  abiding  spirit  of 
God  in  Father  Damien.  Who  would 
gainsay  his  wider  vision  ? 

''  Through  S7tch  souls  alone 
God  stooping  sliows  sitfficieni  of  His  light 
For  us  r  the  dark  to  rise  byT 


FATHER    DAMIEN 


I 


Remember  what  a  martyr  said 
On  the  rude  tablet  overhead ! 
"  I  was  born  sickly,  poor  and  mean, 
A  slave :  no  misery  could  screen 
The  holders  of  the  pearl  of  price 
From  Cssar's  envy ;  therefore  twice 
I  fought  with  beasts,  three  times  I  saw 
My  children  suffer  by  his  law; 
At  last  my  own  release  was  earned ; 
I  was  some  time  in  being  burned, 
But  at  the  close  a  Hand  came  through 
The  fire  above  my  head,  and  drew 
My  soul  to  Christ,  whom  now  I  see. 
Sergius,  a  brother,  writes  for  me 
This  testimony  on  the  wall  — 
For  me,  I  have  forgot  it  all." 

KOBEKT    DROWNING 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

AN   OPEN   LETTER  TO  THE  REVEREND 
DR.   HYDE    OF    HONOLULU. 


Sydtiey,  February  25,  1890. 

IR,  —  It  may 
probably  oc- 
cur to  you 
that  we  have 
met,  and  vis- 
ited, and  con- 
versed; on 
my  side,  with 
interest.  You  may  remember  that 
you  have  done  me  several  courte- 
sies, for  which  I  was  prepared  to  be 
grateful.  But  there  are  duties  which 
come  before  gratitude,  and  offences 
which  justly  divide  friends,  far  more 
acquaintances.  Your  letter  to  the 
Reverend  H.  B.  Gage  is  a  document 
which,  in  my  sight,  if  you  had  filled 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

me  with  bread  when  I  was  starving, 
if  you  had  sat  up  to  nurse  my  father 
when  he  lay  a-dying,  would  yet  ab- 
solve me  from  the  bonds  of  gratitude. 
You  know  enough,  doubtless,  of  the 
process  of  canonisation  to  be  aware 
that,  a  hundred  years  after  the  death 
of  Damien,  there  will  appear  a  man 
charged  with  the  painful  office  of  the 
devirs  advocate.  After  that  noble 
brother  of  mine,  and  of  all  frail  clay, 
shall  have  lain  a  century  at  rest,  one 
shall  accuse,  one  defend  him.  The 
circumstance  is  unusual  that  the  devil's 
advocate  should  be  a  volunteer,  should 
be  a  member  of  a  sect  immediately 
rival,  and  should  make  haste  to  take 
upon  himself  his  ugly  office  ere  the 
bones  are  cold;  unusual,  and  of  a 
taste  which  I  shall  leave  my  readers 
free  to  qualify;  unusual,  and  to  me 
inspiring.  If  I  have  at  all  learned 
the  trade  of  using  words  to  convey 
truth  and  to  arouse  emotion,  you  have 
at  last  furnished  me  with  a  subject. 
For  it  is  in  the  interest  of  all  mankind 
and  the  cause  of  public  decency  in 
every  quarter  of  the  world,  not  only 
that   Damien  should  be  righted,  but 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

that  you  and  your  letter  should  be  dis- 
played at  length,  in  their  true  colours, 
to  the  public  eye. 

To  do  this  properly,  I  must  begin 
by  quoting  you  at  large :  I  shall  then 
proceed  to  criticise  your  utterance  from 
several  points  of  view,  divine  and 
human,  in  the  course  of  which  I  shall 
attempt  to  draw  again  and  with  more 
specification  the  character  of  the  dead 
saint  whom  it  has  pleased  you  to  vilify : 
so  much  being  done,  I  shall  say  fare- 
well to  you  for  ever. 

'■Honolulu,  August  2,  1889. 
'  Rev.  H.  B.  Gage. 

'Dear  Brother, —  In  answer  to  your 
inquiries  about  Father  Damien,  I  can 
only  reply  that  we  who  knew  the  man 
are  suiprised  at  the  extravagant  news- 
paper laudations,  as  if  he  was  a  most 
saintly  philanthropist.  The  simple 
truth  is,  he  was  a  coarse,  dirty  man, 
headstrong  and  bigoted.  He  was  not 
sent  to  Molokai,  but  went  there  with- 
out orders ;  did  not  stay  at  the  leper 
settlement  (before  he  became  one  him- 
self), but  circulated  freely  over  the 
whole  island  (less  than  half  the  island 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

is  devoted  to  the  lepers),  and  he  came 
often  to  Honolulu.  He  had  no  hand 
in  the  reforms  and  improvements  in- 
augurated, which  were  the  work  of  our 
Board  of  Health,  as  occasion  required 
and  means  were  provided.  He  was 
not  a  pure  man  in  his  relations  with 
women,  and  the  leprosy  of  which  he 
died  should  be  attributed  to  his  vices 
and  carelessness.  Others  have  done 
much  for  the  lepers,  our  own  minis- 
ters, the  government  physicians,  and 
so  forth,  but  never  with  the  Catholic 
idea  of  meriting  eternal  life.  —  Yours, 
etc., 

'C.  M.  Hyde.'i 

To  deal  fitly  with  a  letter  so  extraor- 
dinary, I  must  draw  at  the  outset  on 
my  private  knowledge  of  the  signa- 
tory and  his  sect.  It  may  offend 
others;  scarcely  you,  who  have  been 
so  busy  to  collect,  so  bold  to  pubhsh, 
gossip  on  your  rivals.  And  this  is 
perhaps  the  moment  when  I  may  best 
explain  to  you  the  character  of  what 
you  are  to  read :  I  conceive  you  as  a 

I  From  the  Sydney  Presbyterian,  October 
26,  1889. 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

man  quite  beyond  and  below  the  reti- 
cences of  civility:  with  what  measure 
you  mete,  with  that  shall  it  be  meas- 
ured you  again ;  with  you,  at  last,  I 
rejoice  to  feel  the  button  off  the  foil 
and  to  plunge  home.  And  if  in  aught 
that  I  shall  say  I  should  offend  others, 
your  colleagues,  whom  I  respect  and 
remember  with  affection,  I  can  but 
offer  them  my  regret;  I  am  not  free, 
I  am  inspired  by  the  consideration  of 
interests  far  more  large;  and  such 
pain  as  can  be  inflicted  by  anything 
from  me  must  be  indeed  trifling  when 
compared  with  the  pain  with  which 
they  read  your  letter.  It  is  not  the 
hangman,  but  the  criminal,  that  brings 
dishonour  on  the  house. 

You  belong,  sir,  to  a  sect  —  I  be- 
lieve my  sect,  and  that  in  which  my 
ancestors  laboured  —  which  has  en- 
joyed, and  partly  failed  to  utilise,  an 
exceptional  advantage  in  the  islands 
of  Hawaii.  The  first  missionaries 
came;  they  found  the  land  already 
self-purged  of  its  old  and  bloody  faith ; 
they  were  embraced,  almost  on  their 
arrival,  with  enthusiasm ;  what  troubles 
they  supported  came  far  more  from 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

whites  than  from  Hawaiians ;  and  to 
these  last  they  stood  (in  a  rough  figure) 
in  the  shoes  of  God.  This  is  not  the 
place  to  enter  into  the  degree  or  causes 
of  their  failure,  such  as  it  is.  One 
element  alone  is  pertinent,  and  must 
here  be  plainly  dealt  with.  In  the 
course  of  their  evangelical  calling, 
they  —  or  too  many  of  them — grew 
rich.  It  may  be  news  to  you  that  the 
houses  of  missionaries  are  a  cause  of 
mocking  on  the  streets  of  Honolulu. 
It  will  at  least  be  news  to  you,  that 
when  I  returned  your  civil  visit,  the 
driver  of  my  cab  commented  on  the 
size,  the  taste,  and  the  comfort  of 
your  home.  It  would  have  been  news 
certainly  to  myself,  had  any  one  told 
me  that  afternoon  that  I  should  live 
to  drag  such  matter  into  print.  But 
you  see,  sir,  how  you  degrade  better 
men  to  your  own  level;  and  it  is 
needful  that  those  who  are  to  judge 
betwixt  you  and  me,  betwixt  Damien 
and  the  devil's  advocate,  should  under- 
stand your  letter  to  have  been  penned 
in  a  house  which  could  raise,  and  that 
very  justly,  the  envy  and  the  com- 
ments of  the  passers-by.     I  think  (to 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

employ  a  phrase  of  yours  which  I  ad- 
mire) it  'should  be  attributed'  to  you 
that  you  have  never  visited  the  scene 
of  Damien's  life  and  death.  If  you 
had,  and  had  recalled  it,  and  looked 
about  your  pleasant  rooms,  even  your 
pen  perhaps  would  have  been  stayed. 
Your  sect  (and  remember,  as  far  as 
any  sect  avows  me,  it  is  mine)  has  not 
done  ill  in  a  worldly  sense  in  the 
Hawaiian  Kingdom.  When  calamity 
befell  their  innocent  parishioners,  when 
leprosy  descended  and  took  root  in  the 
Eight  Islands,  a  quid  pro  quo  was  to 
be  looked  for.  To  that  prosperous 
mission,  and  to  you,  as  one  of  its 
adornments,  God  had  sent  at  last  an 
opportunity.  I  know  I  am  touching 
here  upon  a  nerve  acutely  sensitive. 
I  know  that  others  of  your  colleagues 
look  back  on  the  inertia  of  your 
Church,  and  the  intrusive  and  decisive 
heroism  of  Damien,  with  something 
almost  to  be  called  remorse.  I  am 
sure  it  is  so  with  yourself;  I  am  per- 
suaded your  letter  was  inspired  by  a 
certain  envy,  not  essentially  ignoble, 
and  the  one  human  trait  to  be  espied 
in  that  performance.     You  were  think- 


FATHER    DAM  I  EN 

ing  of  the  lost  chance,  the  past  day ; 
of  that  which  should  have  been  con- 
ceived and  was  not;  of  the  service 
due  and  not  rendered.  Time  was, 
said  the  voice  in  your  ear,  in  your 
pleasant  room,  as  you  sat  raging  and 
writing;  and  if  the  words  written  were 
base  beyond  parallel,  the  rage,  I  am 
happy  to  repeat — it  is  the  only  com- 
pliment I  shall  pay  you  —  the  rage 
was  almost  virtuous.  But,  sir,  when 
we  have  failed,  and  another  has  suc- 
ceeded; when  we  have  stood  by,  and 
another  has  stepped  in ;  when  we  sit 
and  grow  bulky  in  our  charming  man- 
sions, and  a  plain,  uncouth  peasant 
steps  into  the  battle,  under  the  eyes 
of  God,  and  succours  the  afflicted, 
and  consoles  the  dying,  and  is  him- 
self afflicted  in  his  turn,  and  dies  upon 
the  field  of  honour  —  the  battle  cannot 
be  retrieved  as  your  unhappy  irritation 
has  suggested.  It  is  a  lost  battle,  and 
lost  for  ever.  One  thing  remained  to 
you  in  your  defeat  —  some  rags  of 
common  honour;  and  these  you  have 
made  haste  to  cast  away. 

Common  honour;    not  the  honour 
of  having  done  anything  right,  but  the 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

honour  of  not  having  done  aught  con- 
spicuously foul ;  the  honour  of  the 
inert:  that  was  what  remained  to 
you.  We  are  not  all  expected  to  be 
Damiens;  a  man  may  conceive  his 
duty  more  narrowly,  he  may  love  his 
comforts  better;  and  none  will  cast  a 
stone  at  him  for  that.  But  will  a 
gentleman  of  your  reverend  profession 
allow  me  an  example  from  the  fields 
of  gallantry?  When  two  gentlemen 
compete  for  the  favour  of  a  lady,  and 
the  one  succeeds  and  the  other  is 
rejected,  and  (as  will  sometimes  hap- 
pen) matter  damaging  to  the  success- 
ful rival's  credit  reaches  the  ear  of  the 
defeated,  it  is  held  by  plain  men  of 
no  pretensions  that  his  mouth  is,  in 
the  circumstance,  almost  necessarily 
closed.  Your  Church  and  Damien's 
were  in  Hawaii  upon  a  rivalry  to  do 
well;  to  help,  to  edify,  to  set  divine 
examples.  You  having  (in  one  huge 
instance)  failed,  and  Damien  succeed- 
ed, I  marvel  it  should  not  have 
occurred  to  you  that  you  were  doomed 
to  silence;  that  when  you  had  been 
outstripped  in  that  high  rivalry,  and 
sat   inglorious  in   the  midst  of   your 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

well-being,  in  your  pleasant  room  — 
and  Damien,  crowned  with  glories 
and  horrors,  toiled  and  rotted  in  that 
pigstye  of  his  under  the  cliffs  of  Kala- 
wao—  you,  the  elect  who  would  not, 
were  the  last  man  on  earth  to  collect 
and  propagate  gossip  on  the  volunteer 
who  would  and  did. 

I  think  I  see  you  —  for  I  try  to  see 
you  in  the  flesh  as  I  write  these  sen- 
tences^! think  I  see  you  leap  at  the 
word  pigstye,  a  hyperbolical  expression 
at  the  best.  '  He  had  no  hand  in  the 
reforms,'  he  was  '  a  coarse,  dirty  man  ' ; 
these  were  your  own  words ;  and  you 
may  think  it  possible  that  I  am  come 
to  support  you  with  fresh  evidence. 
In  a  sense,  it  is  even  so.  Damien 
has  been  too  much  depicted  with  a 
conventional  halo  and  conventional 
features;  so  drawn  by  men  who  per- 
haps had  not  the  eye  to  remark  or 
the  pen  to  express  the  individual;  or 
who  perhaps  were  only  blinded  and 
silenced  by  generous  admiration,  such 
as  I  partly  envy  for  myself  —  such  as 
you,  if  your  soul  were  enlightened, 
would  envy  on  your  bended  knees. 
It  is  the  least  defect  of  such  a  method 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

of  portraiture  that  it  makes  the  path 
easy  for  the  devil's  advocate,  and 
leaves  for  the  misuse  of  the  slanderer 
a  considerable  field  of  truth.  For  the 
truth  that  is  suppressed  by  friends  is 
the  readiest  weapon  of  the  enemy. 
The  world,  in  your  despite,  may  per- 
haps owe  you  something,  if  your  letter 
be  the  means  of  substituting  once  for 
all  a  credible  likeness  for  a  wax  ab- 
straction. For,  if  that  world  at  all 
remember  you,  on  the  day  when 
Damien  of  Molokai  shall  be  named 
Saint,  it  will  be  in  virtue  of  one  work : 
your  letter  to  the  Reverend  H.  B. 
Gage. 

You  may  ask  on  what  authority  I 
speak.  It  was  my  inclement  destiny 
to  become  acquainted,  not  with 
Damien,  but  with  Dr.  Hyde.  When 
I  visited  the  lazaretto  Damien  was 
already  in  his  resting  grave.  But 
such  information  as  I  have,  I  gath- 
ered on  the  spot  in  conversation  with 
those  who  knew  him  well  and  long: 
some  indeed  who  revered  his  memory; 
but  others  who  had  sparred  and 
wrangled  with  him,  who  beheld  him 
with  no  halo,  who  perhaps  regarded 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

him  with  small  respect,  and  through 
whose  unprepared  and  scarcely  par- 
tial communications  the  plain,  human 
features  of  the  man  shone  on  me 
convincingly.  These  gave  me  what 
knowledge  I  possess;  and  I  learnt  it 
in  that  scene  where  it  could  be  most 
completely  and  sensitively  understood 
—  Kalawao,  which  you  have  never 
visited,  about  which  you  have  never 
so  much  as  endeavoured  to  inform 
yourself:  for,  brief  as  your  letter  is, 
you  have  found  the  means  to  stumble 
into  that  confession.  '  Less  than  one- 
half  oi  the  island,'  you  say,  'is  devoted 
to  the  lepers.'  Molokai  — '  Molokai 
ahina^  the  'grey,'  lofty,  and  most  des- 
olate island  —  along  all  its  northern 
side  plunges  a  front  of  precipice  into 
a  sea  of  unusual  profundity.  This 
range  of  cliff  is,  from  east  to  west, 
the  true  end  and  frontier  of  the  island. 
Only  in  one  spot  there  projects  into 
the  ocean  a  certain  triangular  and 
rugged  down,  grassy,  stony,  windy, 
and  rising  in  the  midst  into  a  hill  with 
a  dead  crater;  the  whole  bearing  to 
the  cliff  that  overhangs  it  somewhat 
the  same  relation  as  a  bracket  to  a 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

wall.  With  this  hint  you  will  now  be 
able  to  pick  out  the  leper  station  on  a 
map;  you  will  be  able  to  judge  how 
much  of  Molokai  is  thus  cut  off  be- 
tween the  surf  and  precipice,  whether 
less  than  a  half,  or  less  than  a  quar- 
ter, or  a  fifth,  or  a  tenth  —  or  say,  a 
twentieth;  and  the  next  time  you 
burst  into  print  you  will  be  in  a  posi- 
tion to  share  with  us  the  issue  of  your 
calculations. 

I  imagine  you  to  be  one  of  those 
persons  who  talk  with  cheerfulness  of 
that  place  which  oxen  and  wainropes 
could  not  drag  you  to  behold.  You, 
who  do  not  even  know  its  situation  on 
the  map,  probably  denounce  sensa- 
tional descriptions,  stretching  your 
limbs  the  while  in  your  pleasant  par- 
lour on  Beretania  Street.  When  I 
was  pulled  ashore  there  one  early 
morning,  there  sat  with  me  in  the 
boat  two  sisters,  bidding  farewell  (in 
humble  imitation  of  Damien)  to  the 
lights  and  joys  of  human  life.  One 
of  these  wept  silently;  I  could  not 
withhold  myself  from  joining  her. 
Had  you  been  there,  it  is  my  belief 
that   nature   would   have    triumphed 


13 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

even  m  you;  and  as  the  boat  drew 
but  a  little  nearer,  and  you  beheld  the 
stairs  crowded  with  abominable  de- 
formations of  our  common  manhood, 
and  saw  yourself  landing  in  the  midst 
of  such  a  population  as  only  now  and 
then  surrounds  us  in  the  horror  of  a 
nightmare  —  what  a  haggard  eye  you 
would  have  rolled  over  your  reluctant 
shoulder  towards  the  house  on  Bere- 
tania  Street !  Had  you  gone  on ;  had 
you  found  every  fourth  face  a  blot 
upon  the  landscape;  had  you  visited 
the  hospital  and  seen  the  butt-ends 
of  human  beings  lying  there  almost 
unrecognisable,  but  still  breathing, 
still  thinking,  still  remembering;  you 
would  have  understood  that  life  in 
the  lazaretto  is  an  ordeal  from  which 
the  nerves  of  a  man's  spirit  shrink, 
even  as  his  eye  quails  under  the  bright- 
ness of  the  sun;  you  would  have  felt 
it  was  (even  to-day)  a  pitiful  place  to 
visit  and  a  hell  to  dwell  in.  It  is  not 
the  fear  of  possible  infection.  That 
seems  a  little  thing  when  compared 
with  the  pain,  the  pity,  and  the  dis- 
gust of  the  visitor's  surroundings,  and 
the  atmosphere  of  affliction,  disease, 


H 


I'ATUKR    DAMIKN 

and  physical  disgrace  in  which  he 
breathes.  I  do  not  think  I  am  a  man 
more  than  usually  timid;  but  I  never 
recall  the  days  and  nights  1  spent 
upon  that  island  promontory  (eight 
days  and  seven  nights),  without  heart- 
felt thankfulness  that  I  am  somewhere 
else.  I  find  in  my  diary  that  I  speak 
of  my  stay  as  a  'grinding  experience': 
I  have  once  jotted  in  the  margin, 
^Harrowing  is  the  word';  and  when 
the  Mokolii  bore  me  at  last  towards 
the  outer  world,  I  kept  repeating  to 
myself,  with  a  new  conception  of  their 
pregnancy,  those  simple  words  of  the 
song — 

'  'Tis  the  most  distressful  country  that  ever  yet 
was  seen.' 

And  observe:  that  which  I  saw  and 
suffered  from  was  a  settlement  purged, 
bettered,  beautified;  the  new  village 
built,  the  hospital  and  the  Bishop- 
Home  excellently  arranged;  the  sis- 
ters, the  doctor,  and  the  missionaries, 
all  indefatigable  in  their  noble  tasks. 
It  was  a  different  place  when  Damien 
came  there,  and  made  his  great  renun- 
ciation, and  slept  that  first  night  under 
a  tree  amidst   his   rotting   brethren : 

15 


FATHER   DAMIEN 

alone  with  pestilence;  and  looking 
forward  (with  what  courage,  with 
what  pitiful  sinkings  of  dread,  God 
only  knows)  to  a  lifetime  of  dressing 
sores  and  stumps. 

You  will  say,  perhaps,  I  am  too 
sensitive,  that  sights  as  painful  abound 
in  cancer  hospitals  and  are  confronted 
daily  by  doctors  and  nurses.  I  have 
long  learned  to  admire  and  envy  the 
doctors  and  the  nurses.  But  there  is 
no  cancer  hospital  so  large  and  popu- 
lous as  Kalawao  and  Kalaupapa;  and 
in  such  a  matter  every  fresh  case,  like 
every  inch  of  length  in  the  pipe  of  an 
organ,  deepens  the  note  of  the  im- 
pression; for  what  daunts  the  onlooker 
is  that  monstrous  sum  of  human  suf- 
fering by  which  he  stands  surrounded. 
Lastly,  no  doctor  or  nurse  is  called 
upon  to  enter  once  for  all  the  doors 
of  that  gehenna;  they  do  not  say 
farewell,  they  need  not  abandon  hope, 
on  its  sad  threshold;  they  but  go  for 
a  time  to  their  high  calling,  and  can 
look  forward  as  they  go  to  relief,  to 
recreation,  and  to  rest.  But  Damien 
shut  to  with  his  own  hand  the  doors 
of  his  own  sepulchre. 

i6 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

I  shall  now  extract  three  passages 
from  my  diary  at  Kalawao. 

A.  '  Damien  is  dead  and  already 
somewhat  ungratefully  remembered 
in  the  field  of  his  labours  and  suffer- 
ings. "  He  was  a  good  man,  but  very 
officious,"  says  one.  Another  tells 
me  he  had  fallen  (as  other  priests  so 
easily  do)  into  something  of  the  ways 
and  habits  of  thought  of  a  Kanaka; 
but  he  had  the  wit  to  recognise  the 
fact,  and  the  good  sense  to  laugh  at' 
[over]  '  it.  A  plain  man  it  seems  he 
was ;  I  cannot  find  he  was  a  popular.' 

B.  'After  Ragsdale's  death '  [Rags- 
dale  was  a  famous  Luna,  or  overseer, 
of  the  unruly  settlement]  'there  fol- 
lowed a  brief  term  of  office  by  Father 
Damien  which  served  only  to  publish 
the  weakness  of  that  noble  man.  He 
was  rough  in  his  ways,  and  he  had 
no  control.  Authority  was  relaxed; 
Damien's  life  was  threatened,  and  he 
was  soon  eager  to  resign.' 

C.  '  Of  Damien  I  begin  to  have  an 
idea.  He  seems  to  have  been  a  man 
of  the  peasant  class,  certainly  of  the 
peasant  type:  shrewd;  ignorant  and 
bigoted,  yet  with  an  open  mind,  and 

17 


FATHER    DAMIEN 


capable  of  receiving  and  digesting  a 
reproof  if  it  were  bluntly  administered ; 
superbly  generous  in  the  least  thing 
as  well  as  in  the  greatest,  and  as  ready 
to  give  his  last  shirt  (although  not 
without  human  grumbling)  as  he  had 
been  to  sacrifice  his  life;  essentially 
indiscreet  and  officious,  which  made 
him  a  troublesome  colleague;  domi- 
neering in  all  his  ways,  which  made 
him  incurably  unpopular  with  the 
Kanakas,  but  yet  destitute  of  real 
authority,  so  that  his  boys  laughed  at 
him  and  he  must  carry  out  his  wishes 
by  the  means  of  bribes.  He  learned 
to  have  a  mania  for  doctoring;  and 
set  up  the  Kanakas  against  the  reme- 
dies of  his  regular  rivals :  perhaps  {if 
anything  matter  at  all  in  the  treatment 
of  such  a  disease)  the  worst  thing  that 
he  did,  and  certainly  the  easiest.  The 
best  and  worst  of  the  man  appear  very 
plainly  in  his  dealings  with  Mr.  Chap- 
man's money ;  he  had  originally  laid  it 
out '  [intended  to  lay  it  out]  '  entirely 
for  the  benefit  of  Catholics,  and  even 
so  not  wisely ;  but  after  a  long,  plain 
talk,  he  admitted  his  error  fully  and 
revised  the  list.     The  sad  state  of  the 


i8 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

boys'  home  is  in  part  the  result  of  his 
lack  of  control;  in  part,  of  his  own 
slovenly  ways  and  false  ideas  of  hy- 
giene. Brother  officials  used  to  call  it 
"Damien's  Chinatown."  "Well," 
they  would  say,  "your  Chinatown 
keeps  growing."  And  he  would  laugh 
with  perfect  good-nature,  and  adhere 
to  his  errors  with  perfect  obstinacy. 
So  much  I  have  gathered  of  truth 
about  this  plain,  noble  human  brother 
and  father  of  ours ;  his  imperfections 
are  the  traits  of  his  face,  by  which  we 
know  him  for  our  fellow ;  his  martyr- 
dom and  his  example  nothing  can 
lessen  or  annul;  and  only  a  person 
here  on  the  spot  can  properly  appre- 
ciate their  greatness.' 

I  have  set  down  these  private  pas- 
sages, as  you  perceive,  without  cor- 
rection; thanks  to  you,  the  public  has 
them  in  their  bluntness.  They  are 
almost  a  list  of  the  man's  faults,  for 
it  is  rather  these  that  I  was  seeking : 
with  his  virtues,  with  the  heroic  pro- 
file of  his  life,  I  and  the  world  were 
already  sufficiently  acquainted.  I  was 
besides  a  little  suspicious  of  Catholic 
testimony ;  in  no  ill  sense,  but  merely 


19 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

because  Damien's  admirers  and  disci- 
ples were  the  least  likely  to  be  critical. 
I  know  you  will  be  more  suspicious 
still;  and  the  facts  set  down  above 
were  one  and  all  collected  from  the 
lips  of  Protestants  who  had  opposed 
the  father  in  his  life.  Yet  I  am 
strangely  deceived,  or  they  build  up 
the  image  of  a  man,  with  all  his  weak- 
nesses, essentially  heroic,  and  alive 
with  rugged  honesty,  generosity,  and 
mirth. 

Take  it  for  what  it  is,  rough  private 
jottings  of  the  worst  sides  of  Damien's 
character,  collected  from  the  lips  of 
those  who  had  laboured  with  and  (in 
your  own  phrase)  'knew  the  man';  — 
though  I  question  whether  Damien 
would  have  said  that  he  knew  you. 
Take  it,  and  observe  with  wonder 
how  well  you  were  served  by  your 
gossips,  how  ill  by  your  intelligence 
and  sympathy;  in  how  many  points 
of  fact  we  are  at  one,  and  how  widely 
our  appreciations  vary.  There  is 
something  wrong  here;  either  with 
you  or  me.  It  is  possible,  for  instance, 
that  you,  who  seem  to  have  so  many 
ears  in  Kalawao,  had   heard  of   the 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

affair  of  Mr.  Chapman's  money,  and 
were  singly  struck  by  Damien's  in- 
tended wrong-doing.  I  was  struck 
with  that  also,  and  set  it  fairly  down ; 
but  I  was  struck  much  more  by  the 
fact  that  he  had  the  honesty  of  mind 
to  be  convinced.  I  may  here  tell  you 
that  it  was  a  long  business ;  that  one 
of  his  colleagues  sat  with  him  late 
into  the  night,  multiplying  arguments 
and  accusations;  that  the  father  lis- 
tened as  usual  with  'perfect  good- 
nature and  perfect  obstinacy';  but  at 
the  last,  when  he  was  persuaded  — 
'  Yes,'  said  he, '  I  am  very  much  obliged 
to  you ;  you  have  done  me  a  service ; 
it  would  have  been  a  theft.'  There 
are  many  (not  Catholics  merely)  who 
require  their  heroes  and  saints  to  be 
infallible;  to  these  the  story  will  be 
painful ;  not  to  the  true  lovers,  patrons, 
and  servants  of  mankind. 

And  I  take  it,  this  is  a  type  of  our 
division;  that  you  are  one  of  those 
who-  have  an  eye  for  faults  and  fail- 
ures; that  you  take  a  pleasure  to  find 
and  publish  them;  and  that,  having 
found  them,  you  make  haste  to  forget 
the  overvailing  virtues   and  the  real 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

success  which  had  alone  introduced 
them  to  your  knowledge.  It  is  a  dan- 
gerous frame  of  mind.  That  you  may 
understand  how  dangerous,  and  into 
what  a  situation  it  has  already  brought 
you,  we  will  (if  you  please)  go  hand- 
in-hand  through  the  different  phrases 
of  your  letter,  and  candidly  examine 
each  from  the  point  of  view  of  its 
truth,  its  appositeness,  and  its  charity- 

Damien  was  coarse. 

It  is  very  possible.  You  make  us 
sorry  for  the  lepers  who  had  only  a 
coarse  old  peasant  for  their  friend  and 
father.  But  you,  who  were  so  refined, 
why  were  you  not  there,  to  cheer  them 
with  the  lights  of  culture?  Or  may  I 
remind  you  that  we  have  some  reason 
to  doubt  if  John  the  Baptist  were 
genteel;  and  in  the  case  of  Peter,  on 
whose  career  you  doubtless  dwell 
approvingly  in  the  pulpit,  no  doubt  at 
all  he  was  a  'coarse,  headstrong'  fish- 
erman! Yet  even  in  our  Protestant 
Bibles  Peter  is  called  Saint. 

Damien  was  dirty. 
He  was.     Think  of  the  poor  lepers 
annoyed    with     this    dirty    comrade! 


FATHER    DAMIEN 


But  the  clean  Dr.  Hyde  was  at  his 
food  in  a  fine  house. 


Damien  was  headstrong. 

I  believe  you  are  right  again;  and 
I  thank  God  for  his  strong  head  and 
heart. 


Damien  was  bigoted. 

I  am  not  fond  of  bigots  myself, 
because  they  are  not  fond  of  me. 
But  what  is  meant  by  bigotry,  that  we 
should  regard  it  as  a  blemish  in  a 
priest?  Damien  believed  his  own 
religion  with  the  simplicity  of  a  peas- 
ant or  a  child;  as  I  would  I  could 
suppose  that  you  do.  For  this  I 
wonder  at  him  some  way  off;  and 
had  that  been  his  only  character, 
should  have  avoided  him  in  life.  But 
the  point  of  interest  in  Damien,  which 
has  caused  him  to  be  so  much  talked 
about  and  made  him  at  last  the  sub- 
ject of  your  pen  and  mine,  was  that, 
in  him,  his  bigotry,  his  intense  and 
narrow  faith,  wrought  potently  for 
good,  and  strengthened  him  to  be  one 
of  the  world's  heroes  and  exemplars. 


23 


FATHER    DAMIEX 

Damien  7c'as  not  sent  to  Alolokai,  but 
went  there  -without  orders. 

Is  this  a  misreading?  or  do  you 
really  mean  the  words  for  blame  ?  I 
have  heard  Christ,  in  the  pulpits  of 
our  Church,  held  up  for  imitation  on 
the  ground  that  His  sacrifice  was 
voluntary.  Does  Dr.  Hyde  think 
otherwise .-' 


Damien  did  not  stay  at  the  settle- 
ment, etc. 

It  is  true  he  was  allowed  many 
indulgences.  Am  I  to  understand 
that  you  blame  the  father  for  profit- 
ing by  these,  or  the  otificers  for  granting 
them .'  In  either  case,  it  is  a  mighty 
Spartan  standard  to  issue  from  the 
house  on  Beretania  Street;  and  I  am 
convinced  you  will  find  yourself  with 
few  supporters. 

Damien  had  no  hand  in  the  reforms, 
etc. 

I  think  even  you  will  admit  that  I 
have  already  been  frank  in  my  descrip- 
tion of  the  man  I  am  defending;  but 
before  I  take  you  up  upon  this  head, 

24 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

I  will  be  franker  still,  and  tell  you 
that  perhaps  nowhere  in  the  world 
can  a  man  taste  a  more  pleasurable 
sense  of  contrast  than  when  he  passes 
from  Damien's  '  Chinatown '  at  Kala- 
wao to  the  beautiful  Bishop-Home  at 
Kalaupapa.  At  this  point,  in  my 
desire  to  make  all  fair  for  you,  I  will 
break  my  rule  and  adduce  Catholic 
testimony.  Here  is  a  passage  from 
my  diary  about  my  visit  to  the  China- 
town, from  which  you  will  see  how  it 
is  (even  now)  regarded  by  its  own 
officials :  '  We  went  round  all  the 
dormitories,  refectories,  etc.  —  dark 
and  dingy  enough,  with  a  superficial 
cleanliness,  which  he'  [Mr.  Button, 
the  lay  brother]  'did  not  seek  to 
defend.  "It  is  almost  decent,"  said 
he;  "the  sisters  will  make  that  all 
right  when  we  get  them  here."'  And 
yet  I  gathered  it  was  already  better 
since  Damien  was  dead,  and  far  better 
than  when  he  was  there  alone  and 
had  his  own  (not  always  excellent) 
way.  I  have  now  come  far  enough 
to  meet  you  on  a  common  ground  of 
fact;  and  I  tell  you  that,  to  a  mind 
not   prejudiced   by   jealousy,    all    the 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

reforms  of  the  lazaretto,  and  even 
those  which  he  most  vigorously  op- 
posed, are  properly  the  work  of 
Damien.  They  are  the  evidence  of 
his  success ;  they  are  what  his  heroism 
provoked  from  the  reluctant  and  the 
careless.  Many  were  before  him  in 
the  field;  Mr.  Meyer,  for  instance,  of 
whose  faithful  work  we  hear  too  little : 
there  have  been  many  since;  and 
some  had  more  worldly  wisdom, 
though  none  had  more  devotion,  than 
our  saint.  Before  his  day,  even  you 
will  confess,  they  had  effected  little. 
It  was  his  part,  by  one  striking  act  of 
martyrdom,  to  direct  all  men's  eyes 
on  that  distressful  country.  At  a 
blow,  and  with  the  price  of  his  life,  he 
made  the  place  illustrious  and  public. 
And  that,  if  you  will  consider  largely, 
was  the  one  reform  needful ;  pregnant 
of  all  that  should  succeed.  It  brought 
money;  it  brought  (best  individual 
addition  of  them  all)  the  sisters;  it 
brought  supervision,  for  public  opinion 
and  public  interest  landed  with  the 
man  at  Kalawao.  If  ever  any  man 
brought  reforms,  and  died  to  bring 
them,  it  was  he.     There  is  not  a  clean 

26 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

cup  or  towel  in  the  Bishop-Home,  but 
dirty  Damien  washed  it. 

Damien  was  not  a  pure  tnan  itt  his 
relations  with  ivomen,  etc. 

How  do  you  know  that?  Is  this 
the  nature  of  the  conversation  in  that 
house  on  Beretania  Street  which  the 
cabman  envied,  driving  past?  —  racy 
details  of  the  misconduct  of  the  poor 
peasant  priest,  toiling  under  the  cliffs 
of  Molokai  ? 

Many  have  visited  the  station  before 
me;  they  seem  not  to  have  heard  the 
rumour.  When  I  was  there  I  heard 
many  shocking  tales,  for  my  inform- 
ants were  men  speaking  with  the 
plainness  of  the  laity;  and  I  heard 
plenty  of  complaints  of  Damien.  Why 
was  this  never  mentioned?  and  how 
came  it  to  you  in  the  retirement  of 
your  clerical  parlour  ? 

But  I  must  not  even  seem  to  de- 
ceive you.  This  scandal,  when  I  read 
it  in  your  letter,  was  not  new  to  me. 
I  had  heard  it  once  before;  and  I 
must  tell  you  how.  There  came  to 
Samoa  a  man  from  Honolulu  ;  he,  in 
a  public-house  on   the  beach,  volun- 


27 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

teered  the  statement  that  Damien  had 
'contracted  the  disease  from  having 
connection  with  the  female  lepers'; 
and  I  find  a  joy  in  telling  you  how 
the  report  was  welcomed  in  a  public- 
house.  A  man  sprang  to  his  feet;  I 
am  not  at  liberty  to  give  his  name, 
but  from  what  I  heard  I  doubt  if  you 
would  care  to  have  him  to  dinner  in 
Beretania    Street.       '  Vou    miserable 

little '  (here  is  a  word  I  dare  not 

print,  it  would  so  shock  your  ears). 

'  You  miserable  little  ,'  he  cried, 

'if  the  story  were  a  thousand  times 
true,  can't  you  see  you  are  a  million 

times  a  lower for  daring  to  repeat 

it  ? '  I  wish  it  could  be  told  of  you 
that  when  the  report  reached  you  in 
your  house,  perhaps  after  family  wor- 
ship, you  had  found  in  your  soul 
enough  holy  anger  to  receive  it  with 
the  same  expressions;  ay,  even  with 
that  one  which  I  dare  not  print;  it 
would  not  need  to  have  been  blotted 
away,  like  Uncle  Toby's  oath,  by  the 
tears  of  the  recording  angel ;  it  would 
have  been  counted  to  you  for  your 
brightest  righteousness.  But  you 
have  deliberately  chosen  the  part  of 

28 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

the  man  from  Honolulu,  and  you  have 
played  it  with  improvements  of  your 
own.  The  man  from  Honolulu  — 
miserable,  leering  creature  —  commu- 
nicated the  tale  to  a  rude  knot  of 
beach-combing  drinkers  in  a  public- 
house,  where  (I  will  so  far  agree  with 
your  temperance  opinions)  man  is  not 
always  at  his  noblest;  and  the  man 
from  Honolulu  had  himself  been 
drinking — drinking,  we  may  charita- 
bly fancy,  to  excess.  It  was  to  your 
'Dear  Brother,  the  Reverend  H.  B. 
Gage,'  that  you  chose  to  communicate 
the  sickening  story;  and  the  blue 
ribbon  which  adorns  your  portly  bosom 
forbids  me  to  allow  you  the  extenua- 
ting plea  that  you  were  drunk  when  it 
was  done.  Your  'dear  brother'  —  a 
brother  indeed  —  made  haste  to  de- 
liver up  your  letter  (as  a  means  of 
grace,  perhaps)  to  the  religious  papers ; 
where,  after  many  months,  I  found 
and  read  and  wondered  at  it;  and 
whence  I  have  now  reproduced  it  for 
the  wonder  of  others.  And  you  and 
your  dear  brother  have,  by  this  cycle 
of  operations,  built  up  a  contrast  very 
edifying  to  examine  in  detail.      The 


29 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

man  whom  you  would  not  care  to 
have  to  dinner,  on  the  one  side;  on 
the  other,  the  Reverend  Dr.  Hyde 
and  the  Reverend  H.  B.  Gage :  the 
Apia  bar-room,  the  Honolulu  manse. 

But  I  fear  you  scarce  appreciate 
how  you  appear  to  your  fellow-men ; 
and  to  bring  it  home  to  you,  I  will 
suppose  your  story  to  be  true.  I  will 
suppose  —  and  God  forgive  me  for 
supposing  it  —  that  Damien  faltered 
and  stumbled  in  his  narrow  path  of 
duty;  I  will  suppose  that,  in  the  horror 
of  his  isolation,  perhaps  in  the  fever 
of  incipient  disease,  he,  who  was  doing 
so  much  more  than  he  had  sworn, 
failed  in  the  letter  of  his  priestly  oath 
—  he,  who  was  so  much  a  better  man 
than  either  you  or  me,  who  did  what 
we  have  never  dreamed  of  daring  — 
he  too  tasted  of  our  common  frailty. 
'O,  lago,  the  pity  of  it!'  The  least 
tender  should  be  moved  to  tears;  the 
most  incredulous  to  prayer.  And  all 
that  you  could  do  was  to  pen  your 
letter  to  the  Reverend  H.  B.  Gage ! 

Is  it  growing  at  all  clear  to  you 
what  a  picture  you  have  drawn  of 
your  own  heart.'     I  will  try  yet  once 


30 


FATHER    DAMIEN 

again  to  make  it  clearer.  You  had  a 
father:  suppose  this  tale  were  about 
him,  and  some  informant  brought  it 
to  you,  proof  in  hand :  I  am  not  mak- 
ing too  high  an  estimate  of  your 
emotional  nature  when  I  suppose  you 
would  regret  the  circumstance?  that 
you  would  feel  the  tale  of  frailty 
the  more  keenly  since  it  shamed  the 
author  of  your  days?  and  that  the 
last  thing  you  would  do  would  be 
to  publish  it  in  the  religious  press? 
Well,  the  man  who  tried  to  do  what 
Damien  did,  is  my  father,  and  the 
father  of  the  man  in  the  Apia  bar, 
and  the  father  of  all  who  love  good- 
ness; and  he  was  your  father  too,  if 
God  had  given  you  grace  to  see  it. 


or  to  the 

NORTHERN  REGIONAL  LIE 

University  of  Cal 

Richmond  Field  Statioi 

1301  South  46th 

Richmond,  CA  948 

ALL  BOOKS  MAY  BE  RECALLE 

To  renew  or  recharge  your  library 

contact  NRLF  4  days  prior  to  due  d 

DUE  AS  STAMPEC 

FEB  2  6  2009 


DD20   12M   7-07 


